Jerry Seinfeld On Comedy

Audio CD

Comedy is a very serious business, and the easy flow of a smooth performance belies the deep digging that goes into the art of creating it. That's the basic message underlying the insights collected on this installment of the Laugh.com on Comedy series. Former comic-turned-motivational-speaker Larry Wilde captured them from America's king of the postmodern standup comedy scene himself, Jerry Seinfeld, early during the latter's meteoric ascent. The actual dates of the interviews aren't given, though the material was recorded on fuzzy analogue tape, and Seinfeld is still clearly in touch with the raw experience of the club circuit. He reveals a strikingly upfront and straightforward demeanor, and his comments come across surprisingly unfiltered by the brand of ironic observation Seinfeld turned into a weekly ritual through his mega-hit TV series. Goaded on by Wilde's sometimes humdrum patter of questions, Seinfeld describes his own evolution as a comic, the role of quasi-musical elements such as pacing and rhythm in a performance, and many points of technique that comic wannabes will find of interest (it takes him at least half a year to hone a routine into a finished project, he observes). Seinfeld closely links successful humor with logical discipline--needed to trick your audience into believing in the setup--and declares that "laughs contain thought." Not given to looking at a psychological angle for what motivates great comics, he does ultimately define the comic's project as "an exploration into the self" that requires a hyper-detailed awareness. More actual examples would lighten the discussion (there's almost nothing funny here), but all you meta-types will have a blast. --Sarah Chin